On the Paradoxes of Nietzsche and Education: Perspectives

As an aesthetic phenomenon existence is still bearable for us…art furnishes us with eyes and hands and above all the good conscience to be able to turn ourselves into such a phenomenon. (GS §107)

To speak of “Nietzsche and education” invokes an irreconcilable paradox: do we refer to what Friedrich Nietzsche “intended” to teach or “to mean” or do we assess his pedagogical value on the basis of his “interpreters?” Nietzsche courts contradiction as an inescapable component of human nature, which attests both to his capacity for cosmic self-criticism and to his philosophical humility in the face of human finitude. In those moments when Nietzsche contemplates the world as an artwork – to be sure, an “all-embracing artwork” – he sees the universe and philosophy as an engagement, a collaboration that addresses – Ave Wagner! Ave Mozart! Ave Dante! – a dramma giocoso, a “Divine Comedy” (Hales and Welshon 2000, 10). The literary-musicalanalogy should be noted as particularly pertinent: if...

Nietzsche, F. (1983). Untimely meditations: David Strauss, the Confessor and Writer; On the use and abuse of history for life; Schopenhauer as educator; Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (trans: Hollingdale, R. J.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar